It Really Is Faith Based
Blogger Mark Kleiman demolishes inflated claims about the efficacy of (tax funded) religious rehabilitation programs in a piece over at Slate. Turns out the program gave the appearance of lowering recidivism by "creaming" the most promising cons: it counted as "graduates" only those who secured a job upon release from prison, an independent predictor of lower recidivism. All told, InnerChange participants did worse than a control group.
Reason wunderkind Kerry Howley was on this a couple of weeks ago.